


Love and Mercy

by elisende



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Banter, Bruises, Dark, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Battle, Semi-Public Sex, Slavery, Stranger Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:40:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29742336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisende/pseuds/elisende
Summary: Leofric's post-battle ritual is disrupted by an offhand remark from Uhtred.  Wandering in the night he meets a dark-eyed woman who compels him to question everything.
Relationships: Leofric (The Last Kingdom)/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

Ever since his first, calamitous brush with battle at sixteen, Leofric ended a fight by cleaning and sharpening his blade. Wiping away the blood and brain and hair from the sæx and smoothing the new notches made by shield and helm. A warrior could be no better than his weapon. 

As he worked, he tried to avoid thinking too much. He fell into a trance where his attention to the blade consumed everything, even the most visceral memories of battle: the splitting skulls, the blood quenched soil. He’d always hated fighting as much as he loved it. Needed it.

Then night came and it was on to the next part of the ritual: ale. Men were already gathered around the fire, ale flowing, voices rising with the flames. There were women but not enough for all of them and later there would be fighting, though less deadly than the battle they’d won today. 

It was not hard to find Uhtred; he was always in the middle of things. Such was his way. His destiny, if you were given to such ideas--Leofric was not. Uhtred was simply being Uhtred.

“Arseling,” he greeted, accepting the cup that was passed to him by a red-bearded warrior called Frotmund. He’d fought well today; Leofric clapped him on the shoulder as he passed.

“One day you will stop calling me that,” Uhtred said. He was already bleary, his eyes wet and his smile too broad.

“Aye, and that’s the day you stop breathing, arseling.” He took a deep draught of the ale: it was bitter and slaking. Another gulp and it was finished and his head felt spacious. He reached for a second. He’d keep drinking until all thought was extinguished. 

“You need a wife, Leofric,” Uhtred said as Leofric drank another cup as though it were spring water on a summer’s day. He choked.

“You’re the last person who should be recommending marriage.” His wife had taken holy orders and Leofric, though he loved Uhtred with his whole heart, could not blame her for it. She had lost much.

Uhtred leaned close, breath sharp with ale. “Mildrith was not my destiny or I was not hers.” He shrugged. “A woman would take care of you as you care for your sæx. Smooth out the--the nicks.”

“I’m not drunk enough for this conversation.”

“Then catch up.” And, already bored of talking, Uhtred began leading the men in a round of a bawdy song about Cornish girls. 

His words lingered, though. They clanged about the emptiness that Leofric had so painstakingly cultivated in his mind. Someone to care for him. Such ideas were reserved for ealdormen and the sons of ealdormen. Not for slaves’ sons who were ruthless with a sword and had a talent for avoiding death.

Death: sometimes he longed for it.

Black thoughts rushed in to fill the void and his mood soured like milk in a warm room. He left his ale half-drunk and no one marked him. Uhtred’s face was alight with the heat of the flames and ale and the joy of victory. It seemed if nothing dark ever truly touched him. He admired that quality even as he envied it.

Away from the bonfire, the village was silent, bathed in the light of the full moon. 

It was a tiny hamlet with only a dirt track running through two facing rows of daub houses where inside villagers hid their livestock, wives, and daughters from the band of warriors celebrating nearby. He was certain their eyes tracked him through closed shutters as he ambled down the dirt road. 

He might as well show them what a true Saxon was, then, he thought, and leaned against the side of a building to relieve himself. As he pulled up his breeches a muffled whimper came from the dark end of the dirt track. 

He nearly turned back, for surely it was one of the other warriors coupling with a camp follower. Yet something didn’t feel right. He followed the warrior’s instinct that had saved his life even more times than Uhtred of Bebbanburg. It led him down the moon-bright path and around the corner of the two last houses. As he approached, he drew his sword.

A woman sat in a shaft of moonlight, arms wrapped around herself. She didn’t even wear a shawl around her thin shoulders, just a kirtle without sleeves. Her eyes were shut and her face was upturned, as though receiving divine grace. Yet her expression was twisted with pain. Tears gleamed on her cheeks.

He drew his breath to speak and she recoiled. “Who is there? Show yourself.”

She was brave, to speak into the darkness with a band of drunk warriors just outside the village. He stepped forward into the light, slowly sheathing his sword so he could hold up his hands.

When their eyes met, he felt like he’d been struck with a blow to the helm. To call her beautiful wouldn’t be entirely true. Nor was she young. Yet of all the women he had ever seen or had, she was by far the loveliest. It was her eyes, which were wide and dark as a roe deer’s. He’d always believed that the songs sung about being struck by love upon first meeting was guff to get girls to spread their legs. But looking into her eyes he felt a powerful recognition. Perhaps even something like destiny. 

Neither spoke for several moments. Finally, he said, “You ought to go inside. It’s not safe out here tonight.” 

“It’s not safe in there, either.” She hugged herself closer and shivered and he hated that. The idea of her cold. And afraid.

“Why isn’t it safe?” And then he saw what could be mistaken for grime: the bruises on her arms. Bruises made by grabbing hands. Anger built in him. “Who’s done that to you?”

She skimmed her fingers over her arms. “My master is not kind,” she said in a small voice. A girl’s voice, distant as though it came from the bottom of a very deep well. 

“You’re a slave.” 

She nodded. “For some years now.”

He approached, still holding up his hands, and though her eyes were wary she didn’t shy away from him. The bruises were worse, seen close. They were layered in different colors from fading yellow to livid purple. A month of ill-treatment and likely far more. One shadowed her jaw. He could see the strike that made it in his mind’s eye. “Where is your master?” 

He had killed dozens--perhaps hundreds--who had done nothing to deserve it. It would be a fine thing to plunge his sword into the gut of a man who had earned a slow death.

She shut her eyes. “No, please don’t hurt him--I--I will never be free, otherwise. I would pass to his son, and his son is… worse. Far worse.” 

He nodded, still thinking of breaking into the house and throwing her master onto the street in his nightgown and putting his blade through the man’s throat. 

“You’re a kind man,” the woman said, watching him. 

“I am not.” He met her gaze again and again he lost himself to it. And like that, the onslaught of bloody thoughts ceased. 

Her hair smelled of lavender as she leaned close, touching her lips to his. Lips like the brush of a flower’s petal. He drew in his breath, uncertain if this was real. 

Then he took her cheek in his hand and returned the kiss, deepening it. She tasted of honeyed wine, of some precious mead. Her mouth was so soft, so yielding against his firm kiss. His mail was cold steel and he lifted off his coat so that he was only in his shirt. He took her in his arms and she softened under the embrace, pressing against his warmth. Leofric thought he could stay there, like that, happily, for days, years, all the years of his wretched life--holding her, kissing her, feeling the sweet give of her body to his. But she wanted more.

Her hand drifted to the front of his breeches. She did not have to search for what she was seeking; he was already straining against the fabric. He groaned when she touched him. Again their eyes met, a question in his. “Please,” she murmured. She ran her hands down his back and arched her hips to meet his, pressing against him. “I need to feel something.”

His blood flowed hotly in his veins, as hotly as in any battle, his breathing harsh and ragged. He picked her up and carried her to a sack of grain that someone had carelessly left to the elements. Now she lay on her back before him, looking up at him with those wide, dark eyes. He braced himself on top of her and hesitated. “Please,” she said again, pulling his hips to her.

Leofric was a simple man and though experienced, he wasn’t skilled at pleasing a woman. Now he wished he’d learned better. Haltingly, he ran his hand up her cool, silky thigh, which she seemed to like--she sighed and raised her body to his touch. He found the warmth between her legs, already so wet. Leaning over her, he teased her with his fingers, dipping one into the tender well of her, making her gasp. Her sweet smell filled his nose and he could hold back no longer; he lifted her skirts to her hips and lowered his breeches. They touched for just a moment, and then he was inside her. Her softness, the yielding he’d felt before, it was just the same now, and how she gave beneath him. He lowered himself to his elbows so he could kiss her as he thrust, and swallow the small moans she made. And damn Alfred and his religious mania, all he could think as he thrust into her willing wetness was _God is good._

She wrapped her legs around his waist, lifting her hips to meet every thrust, sliding up and down his cock. He’d never felt a woman do that, to take such eager pleasure in coupling with him. He wanted to last but struggled to keep himself from going over the edge. Slowing his pace, he kissed her face, her throat, the softness of her hair. He called her _love_ and she held him closer, her breath quickening as he deepened his motion. And she cried out with a shudder that shook her entire body as pleasure overtook her.

He quickened the rhythm of his hips, mindful not to hurt her but judging by the ecstasy on her face there seemed to be little danger of that. He was so deep in her that it felt as though he should soon reach her smoldering center. A groan escaped his lips as she grasped his buttocks to take him deeper still. Oblivion was only breaths away, he could feel it. He grabbed her leg, raising it high to thrust even deeper. He looked down once more into her depthless eyes and lost all control, spilling his come in her with a stuttering sigh. 

He stayed inside of her for minutes, their hearts beating against one another as he lay on top of her. Her legs were once more wrapped around him. Lazily, he kissed her more, open-mouthed, hungry for her flavor. He cupped her breast, as soft as the rest of her, and full in his hand. 

Impossible, to tire of such a woman. Nor did he know such pleasure was available to men like him. Men without great destinies or lands.

“I cannot leave you like this,” he finally said.

She smiled bitterly, her eyes knowing. Slavery did that to you. Made you wise to all of life's brutal realities, the ones most folk could afford to ignore. “Can’t you?”

“I’ll come back for you tomorrow. I’ll buy your freedom, no matter the price. I have coin.” 

Her fingers only traced his back in reply. As though she knew he wouldn’t.

He slid off of her and she closed her eyes as he pulled away. Even the tenderest caress wouldn’t bring her back to him. And all the coin in Cornwalum wouldn’t buy her freedom if her master was unwilling.

“It’s impossible,” she said. She touched his cheek. “Tonight will have to be enough.”

She left him drenched in moonlight, his splint mail at his side in the dirt, and all around him, darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

Leofric was still awake when the others began to stir the next morning, red-eyed and doubtless sore of head. He didn't speak to them as they trudged balefully around the camp. No one thanked him for keeping the fire banked, nor did he expect or desire their thanks. Minding the fire had been respite from his black, black thoughts. 

Not of her. Much though his mind lunged in that direction, like a hound that has scented a fox, he did not think of her. Those thoughts he kept leashed, for now. 

The problem was that he couldn’t stop thinking of her master. In his mind, the man was scabrous, eyes too close together, his closed fist furred with little blond hairs that trembled with beads of blood--her blood. His mouth was a cruel slash that opened to become a maw of yellowed teeth as he roared at her. 

And with violence that was casual from habit, he struck her. In his mind, he struck her again and again. 

“This is what happens when you don’t get a proper hump after a fight,” Uhtred’s voice cut into his growing rage. “Or did you drink too much ale like the others?”

Leofric grunted.

“I had two last night. Girls, I mean. I had far more cups of ale.”

“Did you,” Leofric said, for it seemed speaking was required. He reflected that his friend was a greedy bastard. There hadn’t been enough women as it was. He would not tell him of the dark-eyed woman he had coupled with last night. Her softness, the way her breath had caught in her throat when he had caressed her. Such things weren’t meant to be spoken of, even if he longed to wipe the satisfied smirk from Uhtred’s face. The arseling could only dream of making a woman moan like that. 

“You are as grim as Odin’s ravens. What’s the matter?” 

Uhtred drew a cup of ale from the cask and only because he was turned away did Leofric confess, “I did find a woman. Last night.”

Uhtred’s smile widened. “And now you are in love.”

“I will kill you slowly, arseling.” Uhtred only laughed. “I’m not in love,” he said, half-certain that was a lie, “But I cannot--she is a slave.”

Uhtred raised his eyebrows. “What matters if she is a slave? Did her master catch you?”

“I should have killed him.”

Uhtred shrugged. “If he did not catch you I don’t understand--”

“He beats her. I cannot get it out of my head. I need--” He broke off, casting around the makeshift camp as though the right words, the right course of action, were mingling with the hungover warriors.

“You need another drink,” Uhtred said. He gave him his cup and sat beside him. 

The ale was good. He didn’t realize how thirsty he’d become. He’d had nothing to eat or drink all through the night. His head cleared, slightly.

“Now, say the word and the whole warband will descend on the village and kill this man. And you can have this woman and everything will be well.”

“If I kill him, she becomes fugitive. And,” he looked significantly at Uhtred, “Evidence.”

Of course, Uhtred had not thought of that. They could not just bring a wanted Cornish slave back to Witanceaster. Young Odda would sniff her out in a matter of days. The boy--his lord, he reminded himself--had a nose for trouble and none of his father’s forbearance.

“Well then, just buy her.”

“She says he will not part with her.”

“She must be a fine woman indeed,” Uhtred said, looking at him sidelong, waiting for details.

Leofric did not rise to the bait. “There is no solution.”

“There is always a solution,” Aethelwold cut in. It was like him, to linger behind two men’s private conversation. “I couldn’t help but overhear--”

“Didn’t ask you,” Leofric said, and the anger that had diminished with the ale redoubled.

“You did not, yet here I am. Offering you a remedy for your problem. You can thank me after we’ve rescued your slave girl.”

Unbidden, he remembered her supple body as it had lain beneath him, lit by the moon, her head tilted back in abandon and the dark tendrils of her hair spilling into the dirt.

Leofric took a deep gulp of ale, draining the cup. “Tell me,” he said.

*

“This will not work,” he said, low enough so that only Uhtred and Aethelwold, riding on either side of him, could hear. 

“It will,” Aethelwold said. His tone did not inspire confidence.

“We’re almost there,” Uhtred said. “I will speak. You two sound as Danish as the Lady Aelswith.”

His stomach was unsettled and he told himself it was just the ale sour on an empty belly. He couldn’t admit that he was nervous as he had been on the eve of his first battle.

Aethelwold leaned over to address Uhtred. “Just remember--”

“I know. I’ll remember.”

No more time for words. They were in the village, where not even a chicken scuttled across the empty street. The place looked all the more desolate in morning’s harsh light, robbed of whatever charm moonlight had bestowed on it.

They stopped in front of the last building and Uhtred shouted for the master of the house. It was some time before he appeared, in a neat tunic made of fine cloth. He was nothing as Leofric had imagined: a small man, he had a narrow, cunning, face, thinning dark hair, and olive skin. Though his eyes were indeed too close-set. 

Damn the consequences, Leofric longed to charge him and lop off his head with a single stroke, to send it flying. His hands tightened on the reins.

“Good morning, to you, travelers,” the man said, pleasantly, squinting into the sun. If he was apprehensive about the twenty-odd Danish warriors on his doorstep, he showed no sign of it. Leofric glanced at Aethelwold. This wasn’t going to work, now he was certain. 

Uhtred hardly looked at the Cornishman, as though he were beneath even contempt. The arseling affected the swagger of a Dane all too well. “We are buying slaves.”

“I do not have any slaves for sale, lord,” said the man. “So, if that is all--”

“Let me rephrase. We will buy slaves from you.” Uhtred urged his horse closer to the man, resting his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Call them out. We’re looking for women. We can take them by force, if you prefer.”

The Cornishman’s face soured. He glanced up at the low ridge that overlooked the village. 

When he bellowed in the Celtic tongue two slaves appeared: a boy with spots and yellow hair and a broken workhorse of a woman with ruddy cheeks and pink arms like ham hocks. 

Uhtred glanced at Leofric, questioning, and Aethelwold hid his laughter behind his hand. Leofric shook his head, cursing the arseling and the shite-stain of an atheling pretender.

“I think you have more,” Uhtred said. “I will not ask you a third time.”

Now the Cornishman scowled and Leofric saw the ugliness behind the man’s false smile. He shouted again and she appeared, dusting off her hands.

His breath hitched in his chest. She was just as he remembered, but finer.

In the daylight, her features were sharper, yet no less fair, her skin bright with morning’s glow and perhaps some exertion. Her dark hair shone sleekly and her figure was shapely even beneath her worn grey kirtle. She looked boldly up at him and turned her chin ever so slightly. Her expression was unreadable. 

He nodded to Uhtred and the Dane made a face of frank appreciation that he could have done without. “ _You surprise me, Leofric,_ ” Aethelwold whispered. He pantomimed a pair of full breasts. Leofric’s glower was white-hot.

Uhtred turned to the Cornishman and said, “We will buy the girl.”

The man, at eye level with Uhtred’s boots, spoke warily. “That one is not for sale.”

Uhtred laughed. “Then we kill you and carry her off while your corpse cools if that is more agreeable.”

The Cornishman glanced again at the hill. “I will sell her to you.”

“That is sensible. What’s your price?”

“I have a daughter,” the woman said, looking not at Uhtred but at him. Her dark eyes were pleading. God, if he could just go to her. Touch her. He looked to Uhtred, who rolled his eyes but seemed to acquiesce. 

“How much for both, then?”

The man folded his arms, suddenly all business. “The girl is dear to me, but the child is dearer still,” he said, his face full of low cunning. “Who knows, it may well be mine.”

“She is not.” The woman lifted her chin. “She was born five months after you bought me.”

“All the same, lord, she is dear to me. Like my own child. I couldn’t part with her for less than two hundred shillings.”

It was an outrageous sum. A princess of Mercia wouldn’t fetch such a price.

“You want to die,” Uhtred said with a smile. “Very well.” He began to unsheathe his sword. 

The man gulped. “Sixty,” he said.

“For the pair.”

The man grudgingly assented but Uhtred was already throwing his purse. The woman scooped up the little girl who had appeared at the doorway, a finger in her mouth. The girl possessed her mother’s wide, dark eyes. She didn’t have more than six summers.

“Let’s away,” Uhtred said in a low voice. He motioned to the woman holding her child and said some indecipherable command in the Danish tongue. But the meaning was obvious enough. Leofric picked up the child first, who was no heavier than a sack of grain, and then her mother. He inhaled the familiar lavender smell of her hair as she settled before him in the saddle, the warm press of her body bringing his to life. He put his arms around her and the world felt righted.

Uhtred spoke again in Danish and this he did understand: it meant _ride on_. They filed out of the village as the Cornishman watched, an angry sneer on his face. 

“My lord,” the woman whispered to him. She was shaking. 

“It’s alright, love,” he said, holding her more firmly. “Have you never ridden a horse before?”

“It’s not that. There are forty men waiting behind that ridge.”

An ambush. That was why the Cornishman kept looking to the hill. He would have sensed the trap straight away if he hadn’t been so preoccupied. She had even tried to warn him off, shaking her head as she had. He spurred his horse forward to Uhtred.

“Ambush, just beyond the rise. Twice our number.”

He blanched. “They would attack Danes?”

“They might lose their nerve,” his woman said, “But I think not. They were ready for a fight.”

“And they’re warriors?”

“They’re farmers and farmer’s sons,” she said. “They have scythes and billhooks. Maybe one or two with a proper sword.” 

He hadn’t noticed before but her English had a slight accent, worn by time but still there. It was pleasant to his ear. Uhtred said something and the woman replied and he listened to the cadence of her words, the slight lilt in them. Not Welsh--Irish?

“Are you paying attention, Leofric?” Uhtred demanded. 

“Yes,” he said. And then, when Uhtred looked expectantly at him, “No, say it again.”

“I said, we’ll cut across the hill and drop the girls in this copse your woman has told us of, then we charge at the hilltop.”

“Right you are,” he said, though he didn’t like the idea of leaving her. Yet he could hardly charge with a woman and child bouncing in the saddle in front of him.

They spurred the horses to a canter and cut across the hill to a copse of beech trees wreathed around a spring. His woman slid off with ease, taking her daughter in her arms and holding her to her chest, kissing her fair head. How large her dark eyes seemed in her pale face.

“They will scatter like rooks as soon as they see a warband of twenty Vikings bearing down upon them,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

“But you are not Vikings,” she said. 

“They think so. That is enough.”

She nodded, then looked down at the ground. “Thank you. I never thought you would return for me.”

“I could not leave you. Like I said.” He wished to say more but the words didn’t come to him. Soft words didn’t easily flow from his lips. “I would know your name.”

“Leofric, we need to go,” Uhtred shouted. His horse wheeled and snorted. The Cornishmen had doubtless seen their detour and could charge from the high ground at any moment. Yet he turned back to his woman. He had to know her name.

“It’s Lilia.” He smiled to hear it. Lilia, a name that was a song. None could suit her better. He urged his horse on, her name on his lips even as they breasted the hill. 

She had spoken true: there were forty-two men and only a couple well-armed. He felt a brief pang of sympathy for the shabby bastards, even if they were foreigners. For they were fighting for their homes against an invading horde of Danes--much the same as he’d done, his whole life. 

But unlike the men of Wessex, these Cornishmen’s resolve crumbled when met with a line of howling warriors astride their warhorses, banging their shields. Leofric added his voice to the din. The Cornishmen threw their weapons down and fled, to a man.

The men were raucous in their relief--for even charging farmers with billhooks was better avoided, when they were twice your number--and they shouted all manner of insult to their retreating backs. Some even flashed their arses from their saddles.

Aethelwold cantered up beside Leofric and Uhtred. “Now you both owe me,” he said, like a boy who has caught a spider in a cup and has unsavory plans for it.

“I have already discharged my duty to you, remember? But Leofric owes you.”

Leofric spat into the dirt, though he wasn’t displeased. “Whoreson. How did you know it would work?”

“Why do you think the Danes are such good traders? Fear is a powerful negotiation tool.” Aethelwold turned his horse away from them, smiling, and rode on. The boy was a puzzle. 

“He is not wrong,” said Uhtred. “Let’s ride back before your woman regains her good sense and abandons you.”

“Her name is Lilia,” Leofric said, for little more than the pleasure of speaking it again.

“I am happy for you.” Uhtred punched Leofric’s gauntlet. “Though I despair for Lilia, ending up with a mean bastard like you.”

When they returned to the copse, part of him did suspect she might have slipped away with her child. He would not have blamed her, or pursued her, if she had. 

But she was waiting for him, her pretty child splashing and playing in the spring as though it were a day like any other. The relief on her face when she saw him was like balm to his soul. 

He dismounted and strode to her, unable to help his smile. When he caught her in his arms, she melted against him, so sweetly. 

“Love,” he murmured into her soft hair and kissed her.

**Author's Note:**

> A historical note on the sæx: it's a type of short sword/long knife significant in this story as it's only allowed to be carried by Saxon freemen (slaves are not trusted with blades). 
> 
> I drew from Bernard Cornwell's backstory on Leofric wherein his father was a slave and imagined he, too, grew up in slavery and won his freedom at a young age.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading,
> 
> -e


End file.
